Syria

• Details have emerged of Kofi Annan's new "ground up" ceasefire plan for Syria, starting with a single "hotspot" and extending from there. Minutes of Annan's meeting with Assad appear to have been leaked to a Lebanese newspaper (see 4.16pm).

• Annan said today that Iran should be "part of the solution" to the crisis in Syria, after meeting Iran's foreign minister in Tehran. Last month Annan wanted Iran to be invited to a meeting of his 'action group' on Syria, in Geneva, but the US and UK objected.

• Russia has offered to hosts new talks on Syria, after opposition leaders travelled to Moscow for talks. Meanwhile, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to visit to Moscow next week (see 3.53pm).

Egypt

• Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament briefly defied the military by reconvening this morning, but the session was adjourned pending an appeal court decision on assembly's status. The decision defers an anticipated showdown between the military and president Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. Liberal MPs stayed away from today's session.

• Both the Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and the US secretary state, Hillary Clinton, urged the two sides to settle the dispute through dialogue. ElBaradei called on Morsi, the parliament and military council to meet to resolve the crisis.

• Before today's session the Judges' Club gave Morsi 36 hours to withdraw his decision to reinstate parliament, and the military council urged him to uphold the law. "If this does not happen, we will announce measures in response", head of the Judges Club, Ahmed al-Zend warned.

Bahrain

• The Islamic Action Society (Amal), a Shia organisation, has been dissolved by court order, the Information Affairs Authority announced today (see 3.14pm).

The report is in Arabic, but the ArabSaga blog has an English translation. It adds some detail to Annan's remark earlier today about "an approach from the ground up in some of the districts where we have extreme violence" (see 1.46pm).

"So let's try again, let's agree a mechanism for a ceasefire starting with any one of the (Syrian) hotspots. We can then duplicate it in another," Annan suggested.

Once again, Assad proved fully amenable before asking his guests: "We are a state, government and official authority, which means when we give you our word on a ceasefire we become accountable to you. But who will you be negotiating with on the other side?"

At this point, Annan began answering together with Gen Mood [head of the UN observer mission, who was also present].

Annan and Mood said, "We at least got to know the major groups. We got to know their chiefs. True, they don't have a unified command or a clear command structure. Their armed chaos is massive. But we got to know their key figures. That's why we believe we can work and proceed with them step by step."

Annan is then quoted as saying:

Let's try again. Our observers would reach an agreement with the armed groups in the area where we choose to start. At the same time, we would ask for a goodwill gesture on your part in the chosen area. The gesture would see you observe a unilateral ceasefire in the designated area, of say four hours, pending the mutual ceasefire's entry into force.

Later in the meeting, according to the report, Assad named Dr Ali Haidar, minister of state for national reconciliation affairs, as his nominee for any talks with the opposition.

Annan said he would have preferred "someone closer" to Assad, but Assad is said to have replied:

Dr Haidar and I shared adjoining desks throughout my university years specialising in ophthalmology. Do you want someone closer than that? Anyway, I think your greater difficulty will be on the other side, not on ours. Will you be able to get a name to represent the opposition?

Diplomatic sources said Erdogan is scheduled to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and exchange views on transition period in Syria with the Russian president, Cihan news agency reported.

Diplomatic sources also added that Erdogan will discuss the recently downed Turkish warplane by Syrian forces and will ask to share with Turkey any possible data Moscow has regarding the jet.

3.24pm:Egypt: Although the parliament may not exist, one of the MPs has still manage to resign from it.

3.14pm:Bahrain: The Islamic Action Society (Amal), a Shia organisation, has been dissolved by court order, the Information Affairs Authority announced today.

Civil society organisations are strictly regulated in the Gulf kingdom. Today's announcement quotes the Office of Political Associations Affairs (OPAA) as saying that Amal's dissolution followed "serious and continued breaches by them including failure to hold the society's public convention for a period exceeding four years (the last of which invalidated its convention because it was held in a house of worship), as well as basing the society's resolutions on a hostile clerical authority who blatantly calls for violence and instigates hatred."

According to the findings of the OPAA this is the same religious authority that Amal holds higher than the kingdom's constitution, as publicly announced by the society's officers.

There were also breaches related to its financial position, and its failure to submit a copy of its annual budget to the Ministry as required by law.

The OPAA confirmed that Amal, with its actions and public and blatant support of violence and sabotage, under the cover of the freedom of political action which is guaranteed by constitution and law, is in breach of the first and foremost fundamental requirement of legitimate political action requiring clear and definitive rejection and condemnation of acts of setting fires, sabotage, terrorising citizens, endangering their lives, jeopardising their freedoms and putting them and their property in direct danger.

3.00pm:Syria: Rebels in the northern border town of Izzaz claimed to have destroyed army tanks in an unverified video from the area.

Our colleague Mona Mahmood translates him saying: "We did really very well, we destroyed this tank first and another other two over there. They pulled out but we continue to attack their pickups. We took prisoners and munitions and you see them them later."

2.49pm:Syria: A Guardian article about dialogue between Syrian and Israeli bloggers appears to have caught President Assad's eye in May 2010, according to one of the newly released WikiLeaks documents.

The article, by Ian Black, was swiftly translated into Arabic and by late afternoon the same day Assad emailed it to Mansour Azzam, minister for presidential affairs, saying "print and send to Bekhtiar". The reason for Assad's interest is unclear.

2.24pm:Egypt: The administrative court has postponed a series of lawsuits challenging President Morsi's decree that reinstated the dissolved parliament. They will now be heard on 17 July, Ahram Online reports.

1.46pm:Syria: Kofi Annan has now arrived in Iraq where he is due to discuss Syria with prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. AP reports that government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq "plans to offer solutions", but he gave no details.

Meanwhile, the UN has provided a transcript of Annan's remarks at the press conference earlier today in Tehran:

Annan: Thank you very much, minister. I came to the region in search of a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis. And as the [Iranian foreign] minister indicated, we held an important meeting in Geneva just about a week ago. And we have spoken on the phone and I have indicated that I would come to the region to pursue my efforts.

As most of you will know, I was in Syria yesterday, where I had candid discussions with President Assad. And here I am talking to Minister Salehi and seeking the support and cooperation of Iran in my efforts to resolve this conflict peacefully. I must say that throughout, since my assumption of the function of Special Envoy, I have received encouragement and cooperation with the minister and the government and I look forward to working together, to continuing to work together to resolve this conflict. And I think the minister has made it clear that if we do not make a real effort to resolve this issue peacefully, and it were to get out of hand and spread to the region, and lead to consequences that none of us can imagine. So, let's work together to bring peace and stability to Syria. I'll take your questions.

Q: [question on disarmament and the role of the UN]

Annan: I think you are right in saying that the UN has pushed very hard for an end to the violence. We want all sides to stop the violence and in fact I think I said not long ago that when we talk of the end to the violence we are talking to each person with a gun – that they should not go around killing civilians and their own people.

On the question of armaments and militarisation, the Geneva meeting made it quite clear that we are opposed to any further militarisation of the conflict, which in effect means we should seek a peaceful solution and not continue to arm people in the conflict. On the question of disarmament, at the end of a conflict of this nature disarmament also becomes part of the post-conflict activities. And I'm sure this will be the case here and very serious plans will have to be made to collect arms that are in the wrong hands and ensure that the government – or the government that emerges or the government of the day – will have control of the use of firearms and weapons. In other words, one authority, one gun.

Q: What's the main problem with the political process? And you all talk of Iran's positive role – so why is the US denying it?

Annan: I think Iran can play a positive role. We talk of a political process but the political process is yet to begin, a political process that would bring all parties to the table. And this is one of the key points of the six-point plan. And I think that the essence of the six-point plan is stopping the violence, releasing detainees, allowing humanitarian access – which should be seen as a package, a package that if complemented will help create the environment and the conducive climate for political talks – political talks between the Syrians to determine their own political future. I believe as you heard me say, on many occasions, that Iran has a role to play. And my presence here explains that I believe in that. I don't speak for other countries.

Q: What did you agree with Assad. What were the talks like?

Annan: I cannot get into specific details. But let me say that it relates to the efforts to end the violence. And he made a suggestion of building an approach from the ground up in some of the districts where we have extreme violence – to try and contain the violence in those districts and, step by step, build up and end the violence across the country.

The details, of course, are to be worked out and the opposition – we'll also have to discuss this with them, without going into details. We'll also have to discuss this with them, which is why I can't discuss the details. But it really deals with ending the violence.

1.32pm:Morocco: Since the Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in 2010 and started a revolution, five young Moroccans have killed themselves in a similar fashion – though without the same political result.

In an article for the New York Review of Books, Nicolas Pelham looks at the Moroccan king's efforts to avoid the fate of Ben Ali, Mubarak and Gaddafi. The article is headed: "How Morocco dodged the Arab Spring".

On Twitter, Sultan al-Qassemi thinks Gulf monarchs could learn a thing or two from this, though Kamal Fizazi thinks the respite is only temporary:

1.21pm:Egypt: Two days of anticipation about a showdown between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military ended in a whimper that displayed the weakness of the president, argues Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo.

I think the Muslim Brotherhood have backed down. They did it in a way where both sides didn't lose face. They did convene [parliament], but in the end it was sort of pointless.

If it was an exercise in displaying how much executive authority Morsi has, I'm not sure it bought the desired result. It just reinforces the fact that Scaf remains the power behind the thrown.

The Muslim Brotherhood blinked, that's basically the end of the line.

Abdu added:

Parliament did actually meet today for all of five minutes. During which [time] they decided to respect the court order, and that they would refer the matter to the court of cassation [appeal]. And they would not meet again until the court has its say.

Meanwhile, [President] Morsi was attending an airforce graduation ceremony flanked by the two senior members of the supreme council of the armed forces [Scaf].

Mohamed ElBaradei's calls for dialogue will not have much influence, Abdu said.

We're in a constitutional mess, without a constitution. That's what makes it so mind boggling. The supreme constitutional court [SCC] is the highest court in the land and it can't be appealed. I don't understand why this matter is being referred to the court of cassation.

There is the court ruling of the SCC, that's one thing, and there's the Scaf decree to dissolve parliament, which is another. That's where the conflict is and that's where there's so much confusion.

He predicted that the court of appeal will uphold the constitutional court's decision that the current parliament is invalid. But it may allow the institution to convene until a replacement is elected.

The bigger question is how much power does President Morsi have? That was what the standoff was about. "I think we can surmise that Scaf is the end all and be all, even after an elected president has assumed office," he said.

Some in the Muslim Brotherhood claim Morsi will try to revoke the constitutional declaration that Scaf used to grab power as the polls closed in the presidential run off. But Abdu said: "I don't know how true that is, we will have to see".

1.13pm:Syria: Kofi Annan told the press conference in Tehran today that President Assad has suggested ending violence by "starting from the ground up in some of the districts with the worst violence", Reuters reports.

1.00pm:Syria: Russia dispatched a destroyer-class warship to Syria from its Black Sea fleet today, a source in the Russian navy has told Reuters.

Destroyer Smetlivy, which patrolled waters off the coast of Syria in April and May, was seen leaving the Black Sea port of Sevastopol on Tuesday morning.

"The vessel is expected to reach the Turkish straits tomorrow morning," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that the ship was heading to Syria.

The navy declined to confirm its destination.

"The vessel has gone to sea, I cannot tell you anything else," Vyacheslav Trukhachyov, a spokesman for Russia's Black Sea Fleet, said.

Egypt

• Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament briefly defied the military by reconvening this morning, but the session was adjourned pending an appeal court decision on assembly's status. The decision defers an anticipated showdown between the military and president Mohamed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. Liberal MPs stayed away from today's session.

• Both the Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and the US secretary state, Hillary Clinton, urged the two sides to settle the dispute through dialogue. ElBaradei called on Morsi, the parliament and military council to meet to resolve the crisis.

• Before today's session the Judges' Club gave Morsi 36 hours to withdraw his decision to reinstate parliament, and the military council urged him to uphold the law. "If this does not happen, we will announce measures in response", head of the Judges Club, Ahmed al-Zend warned.

Syria

• International envoy Kofi Annan said Iran should be "part of the solution" to the crisis in Syria, after meeting Iran's foreign minister in Tehran. Last month's Annan wanted Iran to be invited to a meeting of his 'action group' on Syria, in Geneva, but the US and UK objected.

• Russia has offered to hosts new talks on Syria, after opposition leaders travelled to Moscow for talks. Deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov said: "We would welcome the organisation of a regular session of an 'action group' in Moscow."

12.07pm:Syria: A sobering thought for those who grumble about media coverage of the conflict: a total of 33 professional and citizen journalists have been killed since the start of the uprising in March last year, according to Reporters Without Borders. In its latest report, the Paris-based organisation says:

Freely and independently reported news and information are now an absolute necessity but they are unfortunately getting rarer and rarer.

June saw the death of an unprecedented number of citizen journalists who have been sacrificing their lives to provide video footage of the uprising, the crackdown and now the military operations by armed groups fighting the ruthless Assad regime.

We would also like to stress the difficulty of verifying any information coming out of Syria. The regime has managed to impose a media blackout by posing many obstacles to visits by foreign journalists – who are exposed to great danger if they come – and by jailing Syrian professional journalists who refuse to relay government propaganda.

As for the activists who try to report and document the regime's atrocities, they are hunted down relentlessly by the security services, which kill them or sometimes torture them to death.

During a session [on Monday] presided over by prime minister Fayez Tarawneh the cabinet tasked the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO) with running the affairs of the refugees camps whose financial expenses and logistic equipment shall be bore by the UN refugee agency according to a deal to be signed later.

The move follows a request from the UN last week as the number of Syrians who have fled to Jordan topped 140,000.

AP reported at the time that a new camp in Jordan remained unused "because of Jordan's desire not to anger its powerful Syrian neighbours".

11.34am:Syria: Kofi Annan said today that Iran must be "part of the solution" to the crisis in Syria, and that the Tehran has offered its support to end the conflict, AP reports.

The trip to Tehran comes a day after Annan agreed with Syrian President Bashar Assad on a new framework to stop the violence.

"My presence here proves that I believe Iran can play a positive role and should therefore be a part of the solution in the Syrian crisis," Annan told reporters in Tehran after meeting with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

He said that he has "received encouragement and cooperation" from the Iranian government but did not specify what support Tehran has offered.

Sessions won't resume until the appeal court interprets Article 40 of the March 2011 constitutional declaration in relation to the standing of members of the lower house of parliament.

Egypt's high constitutional court had ruled in mid-June that the elections law governing the last parliamentary elections was unconstitutional. The then-ruling military dissolved parliament, but one of the first political moves by the newly-inaugurated President Morsi was to reinstate parliament on Sunday.

On what basis did the court rule that Parliament was elected illegally?

It upheld a lower court ruling that the law governing the way parliamentary elections were held was unconstitutional. Under the law, the 498 contested seats (another 10 are appointed by the head of state) were chosen as follows: Two-thirds went to candidates running on party lists, while the other third were contested by individual candidates, in which party members were also allowed to run. The Constitutional Court ruled that allowing party members to compete on the individual lists violates the principles of equal opportunity because it gives party members two chances to compete for all the seats while independent candidates don't have the same opportunity.

Now, who has the right to do what?

This is a point of great dispute. Both sides have been careful to frame their actions as upholding the letter of the law. Morsi, for example, phrased his decree recalling parliament so that he was overruling only the generals' own decree dissolving it, and not the original court order. But in reality, Egypt is in legal limbo. The constitution in force under Mubarak was dissolved after his overthrow, and no new one has been adopted. Both sides appear to be making up the rules as they go along — the generals, for example, issued their own "constitutional declaration" just after parliament was dissolved, giving themselves the legislative powers of the chamber.

What happens now?

Morsi has the legitimacy from being the country's first-ever freely elected president, and Brotherhood supporters in the past have threatened a "second revolution" if the army tries to hold on to power. The military, on the other hand, has the top court on its side — and, of course, the ability to put tanks on the streets. Over the past 17 months, neither side has shown a willingness to push a crisis over the breaking point, however, and there are a number of ways that this conflict could be defused. Morsi also announced that there would be new elections after a constitution is adopted. And parliament could meet once or twice and then go into recess. But Egypt's post-Mubarak transition has been wildly unpredictable thus far, and few analysts would venture with any confidence what will happen next.

Egypt's Islamist-dominated parliament has convened in defiance of a ruling by the country's highest court dissolving the legislature.

Speaker Saad El-Katatny told lawmakers gathered for Tuesday's session that the legislature has met to find ways to implement the ruling rather than debate it out of respect for the principle of "the supremacy of the law and separation of authorities".

The lawmakers then approved by a show of hand Katatny's proposal that the house seek legal advice from a high appeals court on how to implement the supreme court's ruling. He then adjourned the session, which lasted about five minutes.

He said he would advise lawmakers in due course of the date of the next session.

Reuters quoted calling for "intense dialogue" among all participants "to ensure that there is a clear path for them to be following and that the Egyptian people get what they protested for and what they voted for, which is a fully elected government".

She added:

We strongly urge dialogue and concerted effort on the part of all to try to deal with the problems that are understandable but have to be resolved in order to avoid any kind of difficulties that could derail the transition that is going on.

9.59am:Egypt: Before this morning's swift adjournment, Monique El-Faizy, a project leader at the World Policy Institute, prophetically said that the likelihood of a full-blown, open confrontation between Morsi and the country's military rulers was low.

There is a great deal to criticise here. But the suggestion that the revolution destroyed a "once-secular" country is untenable. Colonel Gaddafi permitted polygamy, banned alcohol and wrote sharia into his constitution ...

Islam has always been a dominant force in the country, and Gaddafi was no exception. The difference is that Libya's new democrats are unlikely to slaughter their electorate by the thousand ...

As George Grant, Tripoli-based assistant editor of the Libya Herald, explains in his guide to the Libyan political landscape, "the division between secularists and Islamists so beloved by outsiders looking into Libya is a false one. Jibril's [coalition] is a case in point. At the coalition's launch, prominence of place was given to a leading sheikh from Zintan, whilst proceedings were introduced by a woman in high-heels, a 'hijab-chic' and a skin-tight black catsuit."

Such is Libyan politics. You don't have to have spent much time in the Pakistani tribal areas to know that this isn't al-Qaida.

Russia would welcome the chance to host a new meeting of world powers on Syria, deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

He made his comments as Syrian opposition groups visited Moscow for talks on the conflict in their country.

"From our side, I can only confirm that we would welcome the organisation of a regular session of an 'action group' in Moscow ... In any case we see the relevance in carrying out such an event," Interfax news agency quoted Bogdanov as saying.

Egypt appears to be headed for showdown: on the one side, President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood MPs; and on the other, the generals and the judges. MPs look set to defy military by meeting at the assembly building, after Morsi ordered parliament to be reconvened.

There are a few pundits suggesting that the decree actually represents a compromise with Scaf; Morsi called back the dissolved parliament but not for a full four-year term; rather he called for new elections as soon as the new constitution is written, But if the decree represented a secret deal with Scaf, that is far from apparent so far, and the simplest explanation seems to be that Morsi has elected to move the presumably inevitable test of strength between the elected President and the military forward to his first days in office.

Yet Morsi and Field Marshal Tantawi appeared together [on Monday - see picture above] at a military graduation ceremony without outward indications of conflict.

President Vladimir Putin appeared to sharpen the tone of the Russian message in remarks Monday at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.

"We must do as much as possible to force the conflicting sides to reach a peaceful political solution to all contentious questions," he said. "We must strive to promote such a dialogue. Of course, this work is much more complex and subtle than intervening by brute force, but only this can provide a long-term settlement and further stable development of the region and of the Syrian state."

Western powers' efforts to shame and blame Russia for allegedly blocking political change are hypocritical when they support the accelerating flow of arms into the country, which only makes an eventual solution more costly in lives ...

Russia should urge Assad to withdraw his heavy weaponry from cities and release detainees if the opposition also halts its attacks. Moscow must make it clear that Russian military supplies will cease if he does not comply. Iran should make similar commitments. In order to press the rebels to compromise, the west should publicly rule out military intervention under any circumstance and urge Qatar and Saudi Arabia to stop funding the arms race.

He attracted votes from all points on the country's political compass: from liberals and the educated in Tripoli; from tribesmen in the desert south; and – in an arguably hopeful sign for reconciliation – from disgruntled former supporters of the previous regime.

Jibril's biggest advantage over his defeated rivals was his high profile. During the brief election campaign he was frequently on TV. Western educated and English-speaking, Jibril had – controversially for some – worked for the previous regime as Gaddafi's economics minister from 2007.

His defection to the rebel NTC was conducted with impeccable timing at the beginning of last year's revolution.

Appointed its de facto prime minister, he was the prime mover in winning support from the west for Libya's then-opposition, earning plaudits at home.

It makes tactical sense for Jibril to call for a "grand coalition" under his National Forces Alliance (NFA). Big challenges are tackled more easily with wide support ...

For any Libyan government, the biggest immediate challenge — remains taking control of the militias which operate outside the law and refuse to disarm or join the army or police. Legal reforms and financial transparency in the all-important oil sector are tough nuts to crack. Another big national issue is the unrest in Benghazi, where the uprising began, over demands for fairer representation for Cyrenaicia, still chafing under the discrimination it suffered in the 42 years of the Gaddafi era ...

Libya has entered a new age, but no-one, least of all its newly-elected leaders, underestimates the scale of the problems that lie ahead. It will be a long and bumpy ride.